Description: Adults are 11 to 17 inches long. A small rounded snake with smooth, unkeeled, shiny scales. The head is narrow with a large spade-like scale on the tip of a flat shovel-like snout, a countersunk lower jaw, and nasal valves. The ground color is cream or yellowish and the body is circled with black bands, usually fewer than 25, and most often with narrow red crossbands between them. Many black bands completely encircle the body.

Habitat: Inhabits dry desert habitats with loose sand and often with little vegetation - washes, dunes, sandy flats, rocky hillsides.

Range: The species Chionactis annulata - Resplendent Desert Shovel-nosed Snake, occurs from the Southern California deserts into Arizona, Baja California, and northern Sonora, Mexico.

Found in these States: AZ | CA

Diet: Eats invertebrates: insects, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, larval insects and moths, often while the snake is burrowing.

Reproduction: Females are oviparous, laying eggs late spring through summer.

Status: Data not available.

Taxonomy: